Cameron’s political language

24 February 2007

The US pollster Frank Luntz has made a huge impact on recent British political conference seasons. Here he explains why the Tory leader is pulling ahead of the Chancellor — and what the American political scene has to teach them both

Blair knows it. In a little-reported speech last year to the Progress group, the PM noted that under David Cameron’s leadership, the Conservative party has started to adopt ‘many of the attitudes and even phrases and policies we have pioneered’ on the centre-ground of British politics. Fascinating. Blair clearly recognises the political threat to his legacy from across the despatch box, and yet it is one that he himself has had a singular role in creating. Blair was the first of a new type of politician: the Communicator-in-Chief. He brought with him a new type of political discourse and a new political lexicon that the Chancellor is still struggling to learn.

While Brown has much to learn from Mr Blair and Mr Cameron, all three would be well-served studying the linguistic mistakes of the Republican party over the past two years. Voter fatigue after 12 years of Republican control of the legislative branch mirrors the increasing British frustration with Labour’s decade of leadership. ‘Had enough?’, the Democrat rallying-cry, sounds remarkably like the sentiment which has caused voters to give the Conservatives a commanding opinion-poll lead in recent months.

The single most damaging electoral failure of the Republicans in the last election — one that Mr Brown’s American strategists are all too aware of — was the lack of a clear, overarching message to voters. In deference to the adage ‘all politics is local’, party leaders rejected any semblance of a unified communications strategy and left individual candidates to sink or swim on their own. Mostly, they sank.

You’d think the Republicans would have learnt their lesson and started speaking for the people they represent — as well as those they hope to represent in 2008. Instead, Republicans are now speaking above those they represent. They have become obsessed with process and procedure, which may appeal to the educated readers of The Spectator but, I assure you, no one else. Just last month, as a justification for wanting an increase in congressional pay, one Republican leader claimed the ‘raises [are] crucial for members of Congress who are not independently wealthy and must operate two households on the current $165,200 salary [£84,000]’.